“I’ll make a good wife,” I assured him. “One you won’t have to love.”

chapter two

The Elixir of Life

Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas

1818

RACHEL POMIÉ PETIT

Adelle and Jestine and I worked feverishly on my dress, sewing until our fingers bled. We used cornstarch to stanch the bleeding. “You may need this on your wedding night,” Adelle told me. She explained how a woman bled the first time she was with her husband; she said this was natural, for a marriage was a blood pact. The wedding was in a matter of weeks. Adelle had given me some information concerning what went on between men and women; the rest I discovered from watching donkeys in the fields and listening to the whispers of the pirates’ wives.

“You think he’ll be like a donkey?” Jestine laughed at me. “Why marry a man at all?”

Both Jestine and Adelle thought I was making a mistake to do my father’s bidding, but I didn’t care to hear their opinions or warnings.

“She doesn’t want to talk about love,” Jestine told her mother with a grin. “She wants to marry a donkey.”

“Just a man,” I said. “One who understands my father’s business.”

“Maybe she’s right.” Adelle shrugged. “Since she’s not bound to know it in this marriage.”

What was a husband, after all, if not a partner? Why should I ask for more than that? Why should I ever want it?

EVEN IF JESTINE WOULD have agreed to attend my wedding service, my mother made it clear the ceremony was only for people of our faith. The marriage prayers were recited at the same altar where Monsieur Petit’s wife’s funeral had been held. The synagogue was a dark building, but when light came through the windows it became a radiant place. My mother was pleased that I was to marry Monsieur Petit, and because she approved she gave me her wedding veil, smuggled from St. Domingue, the only thing she’d taken other than her jewels. “You’re not as foolish as I thought you were,” she told me.

I supposed it was a compliment.

“Marry from here.” She touched her head. “Not here.” She hit her chest. “Love will do nothing for you.”

As soon as she offered her approval I began to doubt myself. If she thought something was right, it was usually wrong. But it was too late for me to have second thoughts. I’d given my father my word.

On the day of the ceremony I asked that branches from the flamboyant tree be placed in a vase on the altar to honor the first Madame Petit. Her husband would now be mine. He looked very somber and handsome and much too old for me. During the ceremony the boys were solemn and quiet, and Hannah did not call out once. Everyone said she was an exceptional baby, calm and sweet-natured. The wedding contract, a lavishly illustrated document bordered by gold leaf, had been signed the evening before. Time moved quickly during the service; the synagogue was so close and crowded and hot. My mother beamed with pride, which gave me a case of nerves. I felt myself grow wobbly. I refused to faint, but my heart was so loud it was all I could hear. I concentrated on a vase of pink flowers at the altar beside the branches of the flamboyant tree, placed there by Jestine, who knew bougainvillea to be my favorite flower. And then it was done. I was a married woman.

The marriage dinner was in the garden of my parents’ house. Tables had been set out, and silvery lanterns were strung from the trees. Everyone was there, all of the old families from St. Croix and St. Domingue, and some of the newer families from Amsterdam and Morocco. My father’s good friend, Monsieur DeLeon, gave a speech in which he declared that every bride should have a father as wise and kind as mine. Though I agreed, I couldn’t wait to get out of my heavy wedding dress, which Jestine had already decided we would dye blue so I might get some use of it in the future.

Jestine now worked beside Adelle as a maid in our house, and had helped cook the food for the dinner, but on this night she came as a guest, invited by my father. She wore a pale pink taffeta dress. She and I had both had our hair braided by Adelle’s deft hands. There were little white pearls scattered through my hair, and pink pearls threaded through Jestine’s hair. People said we looked so alike we might have been sisters. I introduced her to Monsieur Petit, who took her hand and said it was a pleasure to meet such a dear friend of his wife’s. Without thinking I laughed when he called me his wife. It seemed like a joke, some wild mistake. Monsieur Petit crinkled his eyes when he smiled; he wasn’t the least bit insulted. I carried Hannah in the crook of my arm during the party. The boys ate cake and my father let them take sips of wine. When it grew late, I had to send the children home with Rosalie, even though Samuel held on to my skirt and said he was afraid of the bats his brother said perched on the window ledge. I whispered for him not to worry. “When I get to the house I’ll take a broom and chase them away.”